DEAR,
DEAR Kim, June, Marie, rraine, prairie man, Eryl, parsnip, Susan, Mike, Mary,
Ruth, Kirk, Dave, Jim and any readers who arrive later or missed yesterdays post:
Your words
are so accepting and kind. Kirk, I like how you describe my paranoia in terms
of an alter ego. It is purely a construct of my mind, where I hold the conglomerate
of my Jr. High Love, my mother, my children, a semi-stalker ex-admirer and
sometimes Jesus - let’s call him Smergle (stalking merged looker). I do almost
everything in terms of Him: dress, diet, exercise, perform in public (in which
case I call him Seymour’s Fat Lady).
Sometimes
when I read blogs, I become Smergle. When I find bloggers I admire, I crawl inside every post, applaud their thoughts and gloat over how I think I identify with them better than anyone else. It's a form of narcissism because what I admire is how much like me they think. I
totally feel like a creepy, hooded shadow figure who dares not leave regular comments for fear it will expose an unbalanced interest.
Sporadic encounters with a persistent admirer had a huge impact on my life, but I must say, for a while
I missed the concentrated devotion when stalker moved on to a myriad of new
victims. Sick, I know. I’ve even berated subsequent suitors for their lack of
obsession. Isn’t it always a delicate balance between obsession and romance?
This
makes me wonder about myself online. I’ve taken the tests for Asberger’s Syndrome,
Depression, ADD, Bipolar Disorder, Narcissism, Codependency and Neuroses. I
fall somewhere on all of these scales. But hey, Mary, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t
mean someone isn’t really watching me, right?
Think
about all the ways we’re watched: the cameras watching us at stoplights, malls,
banks…. And there’s always the possibility that we’re being watched on the
internet. It takes a huge amount
of energy to rise above the omniscient, glazed daze.
But
I’ve decided to take comfort and guidance from the reaction that
you had to my Wednesday post. I especially like what Ruth said,
“….maybe
that letter gave you a lasting feeling of the promise of love and romance that
kept you waiting, looking out the window, always opening your
heart to loves’ possibilities.”
I’m
going to concentrate on this. The people that know me, get me and encourage my
eccentricities are that ones I choose to merge (along with a renewed sense of
self) and hold in my psyche. Thank
you!
